Review of Titan A.E. (2000) by Gavin C — 03 Jul 2011

Before Ice Age and other CGI feature lengths like Robots, Horton Hears A Who and Rio, there was Don Bluth's post-apocalyptic action thriller science fiction film Titan AE, the second animated feature film from 20th Century Fox next Anastasia and was his last film of his directing career. Let's just say I grew up with this movie as a 9 year old and have liked it ever since. At first, it sort of looks like a Star Wars knockoff, but apparently, it isn't. It flopped at the box office and it caused Fox Animation Studios to shut down, but was then reopened in 2009.

It revolves around the year 3028 A.D. where the Earth is being attacked by the Drej, which are aliens made of pure energy! The Drej mother-ship destroys Earth with an energy beam just as hundreds of space vehicles manage to escape with the last of mankind aboard! A few years later, Cale (Matt Damon), a young man who discovers that the ring his father gave to him contains a genetically encoded map to the Titan, and thus begins his race across the universe with Korso (Bill Pullman) and his ship and crew, including Akima, a female pilot (Drew Barrymore), Preed, a wisecracking rat-like humanoid (Nathan Lane(another Lion King actor bites the dust)), Gune, an eccentric, green-skinned scientist, and Stith (Janeane Garofalo), a tough, hard-as-nails weapons expert who resembles something of a kangaroo. Before long, Cale and Akima finds out that Korso is searching for the Titan in order to hand it over to the Drej.

The only problem that I had with this movie was the pacing. It was kind of rushed when it comes to non-disney animated features.

Everything else turned out great. It has a great voice cast with pure talent, a satisfying blend of CGI and hand drawn animation, solid sci-fi action sequences, and a very good soundtrack.

Titan AE is not only one of the greatest animated films ever made, but one of Bluth's greatest ones yet.

8/10.